The Obama campaign is defending the president on Israel in this new spot aimed at Florida (buy size unknown):
The Obama camp is also buying early-vote focused web ads in Wisconsin, while the Romney campaign apparently has yet to reserve much airtime for next week – but that will undoubtedly change:
[The campign’s] down-to-the-wire ad placement has been an unusual characteristic of his operation for months, and has raised questions in the broader GOP media-consulting world about the efficiency and targeting of Romney’s paid messaging.
Meanwhile, pro-Newt Super PAC Winning Our Future is back on the scene with what is surely the most hilariously hyperbolic web video of the race so far:
And apparently another part of Obama’s end-of-the-world scenario was releasing the Lena Dunham spot we featured yesterday. Erick Erickson sums up the frenzied response from many on the Right:
If you needed further proof about just how much the President has cheapened the Presidency, consider his latest ad, which not only compares voting for him for the first time to losing virginity, but also ridicules those who might not want to lose their virginity to just any politician. This is the peer group peer pressure people across the political aisle have complained about in high schools for years. But our President is adopting it as a last minute campaign strategy. If you need any further proof we live in a fallen world destined for hell fire, consider the number of people who have no problem with the President of the United States, via a campaign ad, ridiculing virgins and comparing sex to voting.
Alyssa’s reaction to the outrage:
I don’t know if it’s scarier to be fighting the same battles that were on the table in the 1960s, or the fact that we still don’t have a national Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Either way, the prospect of losing ground on either women’s issues or gay rights in this election is pretty horrifying. For those of us who see the potential for concrete losses in our future, it’s not so unreasonable to see the person who will guide the country for the next four years as just as important as the first person you have awkward, first-time sex with.
Eric Kleefeld digs up another use of the losing-your-virginity innuendo – by Ronald Reagan in 1980:
On Thursday night, at a working class bar in Bayonne, N.J., Reagan said, “I know what it’s like to pull the Republican lever for the first time, because I used to be a Democrat myself, and I can tell you it only hurts for a minute and then it feels just great.”
Speaking of Dunham, she and others appeared in this recent lip-dub video telling the GOP to stay away from their bodies:
In the world of outside spending, GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson sends a fresh $10 million check to pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future, while Kantar Media CMAG’s Elizabeth Wilner reports that the GOP’s outside groups not only kept Romney in the airwaves-race over the summer, but they also “helped facilitate the historic shrinking of the swing-state map”:
With the super groups able to advertise in states that may be more of a reach for one side or the other, the nominees’ campaigns have now been able to focus on just nine states all the way up until mere days before Election Day, without having to decamp from any of them. In the olden days of 2004 and 2008, late October typically brought tough decisions about pulling ad spend from some states in order to shore up others. In 2012, the campaigns have the luxury of not having to make those decisions.
This tiered approach — with campaigns focusing on states fully in play and super groups taking on the rest — has resulted in a 2012 presidential advertising battlefield that has stayed remarkably stable and compact. On October 19, 2008, 112 markets saw presidential advertising on broadcast TV. Four years later, that number was cut nearly in half: 61 markets saw presidential advertising on broadcast TV on October 19.
In other analysis, Hamish McKenzie rounds up some data on the spread of online political ads. Not only are they rivaling their auto and entertainment counterparts, viewers seem to be warming to online political advertising’s more targeted nature. Earlier this week, McKenzie also examined which swing states had the best web-ad click-through rates (FL, CO and OH). On the down-ticket, the DSCC hits Richard Mourdock over his rape comments in this new TV ad ($1.1 million buy):
And the Senate battle in Wisconsin continues to escalate with Tammy Baldwin releasing a new ad accusing Tommy Thompson of aiding Iran’s uranium enrichment efforts:
Elsewhere, the one Republican Super PAC behind same-sex marriage seems to have chosen an odd target for their support in Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL) – Evan McMorris-Santoro explains:
At a press conference after a debate Wednesday night, Biggert explained that she’s “close” to supporting same-sex marriage rights, but is “not there yet.” Then she said the issue is best left to the states, equating same-sex marriage laws with the universally-accepted illegal acts of bigamy and polygamy.
“It is a state issue,” Biggert said. “We don’t have polygamy and bigamy and all of these things in the federal government. It’s the states that take care of that.”
That being said, HRC still supports Biggert as well:
“The Congresswoman’s answer was certainly inarticulately stated and we’re happy that she’s clarified she was not making a comparison,” HRC spokesperson Michael Cole-Schwartz told TPM. “Like many Americans she is on a journey on marriage equality and we will continue to work with her to move her toward a supportive position.”
Lastly, the combination issue/fake candidate news, Planet Money cuts another ad from their economist-designed (faux) presidential candidate, this time supporting marijuana legalization:
Ad War archive here.
The Dish 